Basic CMS SEO criteria include:

• Custom title tags and Meta tags on all pages.
• Extension URLs to be keyword specific. For example a location based page should read something like www.myurl.com.au/location 
• The ability to add custom HTML tags
• Image handling and alt tags
• Pagination controls using no index and no follow controls

With these in mind some of the better performing CMS’s are as follows:

WordPress

WordPress itself does not have too many SEO friendly features. However, it rates so high because of the amount of free plugins that you can get. These plugins take a simple WordPress website and turns it into an SEO machine.

Joomla

Joomlas newest version (1.6) is quite SEO capable, at least compared to their previous versions. Some of the improvements in the newest version include SEO friendly URL’s and custom Meta titles and description for all pages and sections.

Drupal

Drupal is seen as a similar platform as WordPress but is not as simple to use. Just like WordPress Drupal relies on plugins (modules as they call them) to make it SEO friendly, here you can find a good list of the SEO modules available on Drupal.

MODx

MODx lets you control 100% of the output without having to install plugins or learn how to alter HTML theme templates. MODx has been considered one of the easier and more beginner friendly content management systems. This is what MODx says about themselves:

“MODX allows you to control 100% of what is output with virtually no effort. Unlike other systems that require learning complex theming engines, in MODX you work with HTML and as many custom variables for the site you need. It takes minutes to build a site that performs amazingly well in Search Engines and because site builders are in total control and can change the output at any time, making tweaks is just a few clicks away.”

Valentine’s Day shopping is taking off. The latest Google Insights report focuses on the annual day of love, analysing how the online sphere contributed to buyers behaviours. The results are wholly insightful, providing business with an look at just how their customers are approaching buying and searching for gifts online.

As outlined by the report, 50% of retail sales will be influenced by previous web research and analysis in 2012. That means that around half of your customers will be jumping online before they head in-store to research what’s hot and who is selling it for the best possible price. If it’s available to buy online, odds are that they’ll purchase it rather than wasting time at the shopping centre, making it vital to tap into the eCommerce market for future sales.

What gifts were most popular for Valentines 2012?

Jewellery was the gift that was splurged on most – understandably given the price associated with a pretty diamond necklace or ring. Dining out was the next biggest, with romantic dinner dates a big hit for couples on the trail of love. The next four items were flowers, clothing, chocolates and greeting cards – the traditional go-to gifts for Valentines.

Men were also identified as the ones to spend the most on that special someone for Valentines, forking out over $150 on average – double what women spent.

Customers are searching for these gifts earlier and more often

The report highlighted how people tried to get their act together for Valentines 2012, researching their purchase earlier than they did in 2011. Popular items also saw an increase in search volume, outlining the point that people are now researching and buying gifts more often online. Not surprisingly, in-store sales became more frequent the closer we got Valentine’s Day, providing people with the instant purchase factor that online delivery turnaround times can’t match.

What does all this mean for Australian businesses?

A few things. For starters, look at ways your business can take advantage of holiday shopping trends and get in early with your approach. You might not sell a product that is popular as a gift, but maybe an article or video that relates to the occasion could provide you with an increase in traffic.

With Easter and Mother’s Day quickly approaching, the insights provided by this Google report will go a great way towards assisting you to shape an informed online marketing approach. As always, the team at roi.com.au are ready and able to assist with all your digital marketing needs – simply call 1300 650 274 to enquire more.

With the rollout of Google SSL in Australia the amount of (not provided) results in our Google Analytics interfaces are set to get even more frequent. In a past article, we detailed just what (not provided) data was and how it prevents online marketers from analysing where their traffic is coming from.

Whilst it may be impossible to accurately determine exactly where (not provided) data is originating from, it is possible to get a general idea through some clever analysis.

Use landing pages as a source for (not provided) information

Although you can’t see the specific terms searched, seeing what pages (not provided) users end up on will give you some indication as to what they were searching for.

For example, if you have 30 visits going to your /carpet-cleaning-melbourne page, you can determine that those 30 users searched something to do with carpet cleaning in the city of Melbourne. Long-tail keywords are harder to determine through this process, which is one of the biggest disadvantages of Google SSL as they are a great indicator of new key-phrases to target in your campaign.

Having your landing pages set up clearly and concisely is key to utilising this approach. If your landing pages are pretty generic, say something like /carpet-cleaning, there’s a lot more keywords that could be leading to that page – something to keep in mind when conducting your analysis.

How will this impact Australian businesses?

Hopefully positively. Having some sort of answer to the (not provided) conundrum is better than having no answers at all. With this information in hand you’ll be able to more accurately analyse just which of your pages are working best.

Combining this information with the other Analytics data that Google has not hidden will allow you to make an educated – if not completely informed – analysis of your user’s behaviour.

Still a bit of a novice when it comes to Google Analytics and (not provided) data? The team at roi.com.au have extensive experience with the interface and will be able to assist – contact us today on 1300 650 274.

No your new blog post doesn’t have a chest infection. Viral content refers to a piece that is the latest big thing in any given industry. We’ve all seen them – they’re the articles, pictures and clips that are shared like wildfire through social media sites, email and even in good old-fashioned face-to-face chats. YouTube videos are a great example of viral content that often do the rounds.

On the biggest scale, viral content online gets recognised everywhere. It’ll pop up on the news, major current event programs and in the papers. Odds are that if you are looking to get an industry related article to go viral, you won’t get this type of exposure – unless it’s truly ground breaking!

Instead, you might have your piece shared amongst other industry heavyweights or by customers searching for answers to a particular question. Going viral is a fantastic way to generate a large amount of exposure and interest in your business and its services, but it is often easier said than done.

How do I get my content to go viral?

For starters it has to be on a high interest topic. Identifying what people are talking about in your industry at any given time and providing relevant information on that topic is a great base point. Your piece has to have substance. Include images, quotes, stats and facts – whatever you need to add to show readers that you are a credible source of information.

The time you publish is also relevant. Odds are that people aren’t going to be looking for the latest industry trends on their Saturday or Sunday morning. The same could be said for Monday morning where they’ll be flat chat with other work, or Friday afternoon where they are tying up the weeks loose ends. Stick to mid-week posts and you’ll have greater chance of capturing your corporate audience.

The design of your site also plays a part in viral content. You could be putting out high-quality articles full of worthwhile information, but the heavy ad presence on your site could be driving visitors elsewhere. If this is the case for you, try going for a cleaner layout on your next post. Keeping it simple with content as the focus will ensure users don’t get lost in the clutter.

Finally, getting feedback from other industry heavyweights is a must. Try this before you publish. Not only will you be drumming up support and recognition for the piece before you put it live, you’ll also get feedback on just how good your article is. What’s more, if someone has seen the article before, they’ll be more likely to re-post and share it when it goes live to the world.

Will viral content improve my business?

Yes. Sharing is caring in the SEO world, and Google will start recognising you as an industry authority if you keep putting out worthwhile content. This will in turn to better rankings and traffic – a big tick for your SEO campaign and online presence.

Historically, the instant thought process for businesses looking to rank for a new service, product or industry update has been largely similar – create a new article or blog post focused on the subject and its relevant search terms.

With thousands of websites in hundreds of industries trying to jostle for first page positions on any given topic, it is often tough to rank highly for blog articles simply due to the incessant amount of competition out there. Unless you write for a website with an extremely high domain authority, publishing an article on the latest buzz topic in your industry could ultimately leave you with little rewards. You might tick all the boxes for on-page optimisation and informative content guidelines, but will still be let down by your site’s lack of strength in the eyes of Google.

Its circumstances like this where video content could be the answer. Google is providing increasing emphasis on video content in its first page search results, much like it does for Places listings. However – again like Places listings – video content is only displayed for relevant keywords, making it important to analyse your search terms before you go about creating an in-depth video on the latest industry trends.

What type of search phrases work for video content?

‘How to’ searches are massive for video related search results. Creating ‘how to’ videos around areas of your business is a great way to provide informative, relevant content to searchers. This then provides you with a chance for click-throughs to your site, as outlined in our past article on optimising videos.

As with blog articles, videos need to provide relevant, informative content that is designed to answer the questions of searchers, not simply to appease Google’s crawlers. Doing searches on potential key phrases to see if Google provides video results for these terms is the place to start.

Are SEO blog articles a thing of the past?

Heavens no. Blog articles are still an extremely important part of your site’s SEO campaign, especially for topics with lower competition. If you’ve identified a subject that has worthwhile search potential and low competition, odds are that an informative blog article – rather than a detailed video – will get the job done.

Combining the strength of video and articles is another way to increase the first page chances for your website. Creating SEO content focused on the topic of your videos with a link included will ensure that users have double the chance of clicking through to either one or both of the pieces you’ve put live.

Identifying what to type of medium to utilise when trying ranking on the first page of Google is something the team at roi.com.au specialise in. Our SEO experts are available to advise and guide clients through the best strategies for video and content creation for their websites – call today on 1300 650 274 to find out more!

Google’s SSL is now available for users of www.google.com.au, something which online marketers in Australia are greeting with great trepidation. As mentioned in a previous roi.com.au blog on Google SSL, Secure Search has already been rolled out in locations around the world including the UK, Germany and France. Identified by the https:// before the google.com.au URL, Secure Search is in place to provide more privacy and security for users of Google Australia.

For online marketers however, it means less statistics to work with when it comes to analysing the effectiveness of SEO campaigns. Searchers using SSL show up as (not provided) in Google Analytics (read more here), and whilst this hasn’t been a problem for Australian search marketers in the past, it will become increasingly more prevalent as SSL establishes itself.

Before SSL became available in Australia, only 1% of roi.com.au’s client traffic was showing up as (not provided) in Analytics. This figure is expected to rise dramatically now that Secure Search is widely open to Australian searchers.

Has Secure Search extended itself to AdWords?

In short, no. In what’s been widely called a double standard by Google, AdWords operators have still been able to access user data even though it has been entered during a Secure Search. Critics are identifying this as a biased move by Google to encourage online marketers to utilise more Adwords and less SEO. Google is naturally opting for the ‘safety and privacy for users’ line as opposed to the ‘we want to make more money through advertising’ stance, but it’s something that hasn’t gone unoticed in the SEM industry.

How will Google Australia SSL impact SEO campaigns?

For DIY SEO campaigns, it will equate to a lot less data to work with. This in turn will mean a less educated strategy due to the lack of necessary resources.

For SEO companies, the results are not so dire. Whilst Analytics is a major factor in data analysis for online marketers, it isn’t the sole contributor. In essence, this change will negatively impact small-time SEO operators more than it will the companies who have expertise across all areas of SEM. An equal mix of SEO, PPC, web design, copywriting and social media marketing will become a necessity for websites looking to establish themselves online.

At roi.com.au, we have the resources and experience to provide clients with the right amount of analysis and data to ensure their campaign isn’t offset by SSL. To learn more about our SEM solutions, call 1300 650 274 today.

The term ‘SOPA’ has been major news recently and it’s little wonder why when you consider just what it is all about. SOPA stands for the Stop Online Piracy Act which is quickly moving through the US Congress. It is a bill that is focused on giving the government power to shut down sites that provide illegal content, such as those that provide movie and music downloads. The difficulty the US has with this is that many of these sites are outside their jurisdiction and cannot be prosecuted under such laws. To combat this, the passing of SOPA will allow the US government to:

• Provide internet providers with the right to block their customers from accessing sites that provide illegal content
• Allow companies to sue websites that promote illegal content. This includes search engines, blogs, social media sites and forums
• Cut funds provided by American companies through advertising and donations provided to sites displaying illegal content

Whilst these seem like positive advancements for the affected businesses, there are a number of holes in SOPA that could have a detrimental impact on internet usage and is likely to hurt many businesses plying their trade online.

What will be the results if SOPA is passed?

It’s likely that, if passed, SOPA will change the entire way we use the internet. Major websites such as Google and Facebook will be crippled due to the fact that they won’t be able to regulate the content they promote. Under SOPA, Facebook could be sued as a result of one of their users posting up a YouTube link that is infringing copyright laws. Similarly, Google will be faced with the impossible task of regulating everything that shows up in its search results.

It’s a loophole in the act that will see pioneering websites fall to their knees. Sites like Soundcloud, Twitter, Wikipedia, YouTube and more will be technically infringing copyrights and displaying illegal content in some way or another, putting them directly in SOPA’s crosshairs. Even the next generation of game-changing internet start-ups will be put under pressure from the outset, hindering the type of internet development and progression that has revolutionised the way we live today.

Even if the US government is reserved in its use of SOPA, other governments that are likely to follow suit may not be. In the wrong hands, the laws outlined in this act could be used to seriously inhibit people’s internet usage. There are also concerns that the internet will become less secure due to continued meddling with domains names. Less security means more risk for those using the internet the right way.

How will SOPA impact Australian businesses?

Australia has close ties to the USA when it comes to Internet laws, so you can be sure that if America passes SOPA, Australia will follow with something similar. For Australian business, this will mean that internet advertising will be severely hindered. SEO relies on search engine performance and under SOPA, this will be restricted. Content generation by websites will need to be completely unique to ensure no infringement is in place.

Companies will need to be sure that any links to their websites are from legitimate sources that contain no illegal content. Google indexing will need to be majorly changed which will result in longer wait times for improved rankings. Ultimately, it will mean a much more stringent existence that could see sites penalised for doing little wrong.

As Australia is also geographically disconnected from the rest of the world, the internet has played a major part in fostering international business growth and overseas partnerships – something that may well come under threat with this new legislation.

For Australian companies looking to advertise and generate business online, SOPA is a definite no.

Page titles have always been one of the most important elements of a successful search engine optimization strategy. The primary signal for Google in determining what a page is about has always been the <title> tag but they are also relying on other factors – especially where their interpretation is that the specified page title isn’t the best representation of what a page is about.

A recent post on the Google Webmaster Central Blog has revealed that the page title specified in the <title> tag in your site’s header isn’t necessarily the same title that they display in search engine results pages any more.

Google have tested displaying alternative page titles – something other than what’s in the <title> tag and this has shown to increase CTR (Click-Through Rate) in a significant number of results.

This new announcement highlights the continued improvement Google have made in how they assess what a web page is about. The page title is a crucial element of SEO, but Google have progressed beyond that to deliver more accurate search results and for the end user, that’s probably a good thing.

Does this make things easier for SEO professionals?

If you are a web marketer, you may be thinking that there is no need to optimise titles any longer as Google will figure out what it’s about. But what if they are wrong? We have seen countless instances where the page Google serves up for a given search term isn’t the page you want that audience to see. So rather than being seen as an opportunity to be more lax about your SEO, it should be a reminder to reinforce the basic principles of SEO and eliminate any margin for error on page titles.

What this development highlights is that countless online marketers are not carrying out basic SEO implementation such as unique page titles – this has probably spurred Google into action. All too often we see pages with identical titles, lengthy titles or generic titles such as ‘Home’ – which really provide nothing useful to the Google searcher trying to instantly evaluate which result to click on in a SERP.

Reliance on this new development as some sort of SEO safety net isn’t likely to have the desired impact on your online marketing campaign. If you are trying to proactively manage your campaign to generate higher quantities of relevant traffic, it’s best to optimise all page titles on your site accordingly.

It also highlights the opportunity of using synonyms and targeting long-tail variations in your content as it may happen that Google serves up an alternative (and more relevant) page title for a search result similar to those that are the main focus of your campaign.

For a successful online marketing campaign, speak to the experts at Australia’s fastest growing online marketing company. Call roi.com.au today on 1300 650 274!

Google have quietly announced the introduction of Secure Search for regional domains but as yet, SSL has not been rolled out to Google Australia in what is merely a stay of execution for organic search marketers. The introduction of SSL last year caused a storm of controversy in the world of online marketing and the latest development would suggest that Google is undeterred by the discontent amongst the Search Engine Optimisation community.

Featured somewhat discreetly as one of thirty changes in Google’s latest Inside Search announcement is the availability of Google SSL on regional domains such as Google UK, Google Deutschland and Google France.

As we all know, Google SSL has been the default search engine on Google.com for signed-in Google users but SSL wasn’t previously available on other country-specific domains. Until now! Google searchers in the Britain, Germany and France can now search through SSL on respective secure domains https://www.google.co.uk, https://www.google.de and https://www.google.fr.

At this stage, Secure Search is an opt-in for searchers in these countries, rather than a default setting similar to the .com domain. However it’s likely to only be a matter of time before the SSL version of the search engine is the default for signed-in users. This will inevitably play havoc with the efforts of internet marketers and may affect Australian businesses that compete in these markets.

Does this affect Australian marketers?

Now that Google has released SSL in these prominent global markets, expect Australia to be next on the SSL radar. It hasn’t happened yet but it’s only a matter of time before we see google.com.au on a secure domain.

As we have already seen with google.com, SSL has a significant impact on traffic data for web marketers. Website marketers engaged in predominantly organic SEO as their main marketing channel will see their data seriously compromised by the dreaded “(not provided)” and are effectively forced into making less-educated business decisions.

For businesses engaged in PPC (pay-per-click) advertising, the “(not provided)” issue is overcome to some extent by Matched Search Query data but unless you are running a comprehensive online advertising campaign, that data is by no means definitive of user behaviour.

So far, SSL has accounted for anything between 0% and 30% of web traffic for Google Analytics users. At roi.com.au, the average thus far has sat at slightly over 1% but that figure is likely to change significantly when Secure Search comes to the .com.au version of Google.

Australian marketers have the luxury of not being the first to be drastically impacted by “(not provided)” data and can use the introduction on google.com as a reference point. However the pending introduction of SSL here in Australia illustrates the need for marketers to make full use of data available to them to help build a profile of their target audience.

It also underpins the notion that relying exclusively on SEO as a marketing channel is likely to get more difficult and a comprehensive mix SEO, PPC and social media marketing is likely to be more effective in the long run, even it does cost more.

We’re looking for the best talent in Australia to join our team of dedicated online marketing professionals. Whether you are an experienced marketing expert or an emerging talent with the determination to succeed, we’d like to hear from you.

roi.com.au is Australia’s fastest growing online marketing company and to sustain our phenomenal growth we are investing in more resources to enable us to continue delivering a positive return on investment for all our valued clients.

At roi.com.au, we offer attractive salaries, regular performance reviews, continuous training and unparalleled growth opportunities within the online marketing industry in Australia.

We are looking for:

• SEO Account Managers – Manage a portfolio of clients and positively influence business growth
• Web Copywriters – Passion for the written word? Want to learn about SEO? Join roi.com.au
• Junior SEOs – Keen to learn about online marketing? Part-time and full-time positions available!

Can’t find the position you are after? We’d still like to hear from you!

If you thrive on delivering consistent customer satisfaction and think you have what it takes to work in a dynamic and challenging environment, then send a cover letter and an up-to-date resume to careers@roi.com.au.

If you think any of our current vacancies are right for you, then apply today. If any of these vacancies are not quite right but you feel you could still add value to roi.com.au we would be happy to hear from you!

Join Australia’s leading performance-based search engine marketing company and learn from the best in the business.